web host reccommendations?

December 19, 2005 5:53 PM

2ndWebHostFilterofthedayFilter: Some time ago, my friend gave me access to his FTP server, a luxury which I have enjoyed until now, when the server has become increasingly unreliable...so I pose the following question:

What is the best (from your collective MeFi experience) free or cheap (>$150/yr) web hosting service with FTP access, preferable a large chunk of it.
Basically what I'm asking is...what's the best cheap/free web host out there on the glorious intarweb...?
Also, this must be very n00b friendly...

posted by weaponsgradecarp to Computers & Internet (14 answers total)

Dreamhost.

(FYI, every web host will give you FTP access).
posted by null terminated at 5:57 PM on December 19, 2005

Depending on how reliable you need your host to be you can get something much cheaper than $150 per year. But, as in all of life, you get what you pay for.

Dreamhost is where I've recently transferred many of my own and my friends accounts to.
posted by FlamingBore at 6:06 PM on December 19, 2005

First of all, don't get a free webhost. It'll either have some crazy custom page setup to serve ads or it'll go belly-up on some random Tuesday.

Second, Dreamhost does indeed rock, but if you're looking for seriously cheap, you can find cheaper. Don't expect much tech support or perfect reliability* though. Check out the Webhosting Talk forums, specifically the Web Hosting Offers section.

* Though OTOH, Dreamhost hasn't been perfectly reliable recently either. But at least they've been upfront about the problems.
posted by boaz at 6:10 PM on December 19, 2005

Laughing Squid. Where else does a webhosting through a party for their customers? Sure, it's only in San Francisco, but still...

Rates are cheap too.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:26 PM on December 19, 2005

Hcoop, the Internet hosting cooperative. (It's about $5/month.)
posted by bpt at 6:53 PM on December 19, 2005

BTW, You should know that Dreamhost pays a $97 / referral commission, which is the whole reason why sites like pickingadomainhost.com exist. Instead of going through something like that, if you know a friend on Dreamhost, use his referral name, and then split it/throw a big party/etc.
posted by boaz at 7:50 PM on December 19, 2005

I used to use Pixelhosting for $2.50 a month, and it was actually quite good. However, I have since moved to Dreamhost. Interestingly enough, Dreamhost has had more problems (although as has been said, they tell you all the details etc).

If you can, try and sign up when there's a sale/special event. Dreamhost have cheap rates during their anniversary, and many places have limited time special offers (e.g $5 off a month). Then once you sign up during that window, you get that price for the duration of your hosting.
posted by djgh at 8:05 PM on December 19, 2005

Ditto on the special events. When I signed up I got a year of hosting for $9.24. No setup fee or anything.
posted by danb at 8:21 PM on December 19, 2005

(Disclaimer: I own a web hosting provider, pbp.net - I run it as a side business.)

That being said, I'm kind of curious about what you're looking for in a host. What were you doing with the FTP server anyway?

Let us know what you need, and perhaps an answer can be found. :-)
posted by drstein at 9:16 PM on December 19, 2005

Remember the adage: you pay peanuts; you get monkeys. :)

(In other words, if something is too good to be true, it usually is.)

So don't get down to anything ultra-cheap if reliability is a concern.


(Why does MeFi seem like a collective Dreamhost marketing machine sometimes?)
posted by madman at 2:03 AM on December 20, 2005

Dreamhost are ace - some slag them but I think they're reliable and have loads of features. Also, if you get a promo code (find one on the net), you can get a year's service for $120 - $97 = $23

Alternatively, if you want secure transfer (and ONLY storage with SFTP access), check out Strongspace.
posted by pollystark at 2:30 AM on December 20, 2005

madman writes "(Why does MeFi seem like a collective Dreamhost marketing machine sometimes?)"

quite honestly, because dreamhost has become one of the top providers for "we don't need a whole datacenter" websites....

They keep up with technology, with patches and upgrades regularly, they're usually ahead of the curve when it comes to fads, like wikis and Ruby...

I've always gotten the right answer, the first time, whenever I've had a support problem/question... though it hasn't always been within the 24 hours they advertise, at least they send out a "crap, it's been longer than 24 hours, we're really busy, and we promise we'll get back to you" email...

They're one of the few companies to offer real incentives for referrals (three referrals a year pays for my web service...)

They're run by a bunch of guys that like to have fun, and the monthly newsletter is hilarious (the one where everything was haiku cracked me up!)

probably more reasons, but thats enough...
posted by hatsix at 3:10 AM on December 20, 2005

I'm quite happy with Verve Hosting. I was previously using ShieldHost but they were horribly unreliable, and often took over 24 hours to respond to support tickets. Oh, and their backend SUCKED (Cpanel is the best!).
posted by antifuse at 4:31 AM on December 20, 2005

I've always been happy with One and One. Cheap, lets you do lots of stuff (bolt on domains, forwarding, Apache config files, Perl, PHP, FTP in of course...) Have several sites on there.
posted by alasdair at 6:41 AM on December 20, 2005